Category: Университетская жизнь /

Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –

An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

Today, the Polytechnic University acquired a new partner: the Kirov Central Park of Culture and Leisure, or CPCL for short. SPbPU Rector Andrey Rudskoy and CPCL Director Pavel Seleznev signed a cooperation agreement.

Pavel Andreevich graduated from the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Polytechnic University in 1985, so his visit to his alma mater was a special occasion for him. He was accompanied by Alexey Yezhov, First Deputy Director of the Central Park of Culture and Recreation, and Maria Zhuk, a methodologist at the Yelaginoostrovsky Palace Museum. The guests were greeted by Rector Andrey Rudskoy, Advisor to the Rector's Office Vladimir Glukhov, Vice Rector for Organizational and Economic Affairs Stanislav Vladimirov, Vice Rector for Information, Youth Policy, and Security Maxim Pasholikov, Vice Rector for Continuing and Pre-University Education Dmitry Tikhonov, Academic Secretary Dmitry Karpov, Director of the SPbPU Institute of Civil Engineering Marina Petrochenko, Director of the Fundraising and Alumni Relations Center Sergey Chichenev, and Director of the Polytechnic Museum Valery Klimov.

The conversation around the oval table in the rector's office was both businesslike and friendly. Many shared memories emerged, from childhood walks in the Central Park of Culture and Leisure to student years at the Polytechnic University. Pavel Seleznev recounted how he, a graduate of the LPI Mechanical Engineering Department and then the St. Petersburg University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, became the head of the Central Park of Culture and Leisure, which he has managed for 14 years now. He shared interesting facts about the park, in particular, about tulips, which have now become an integral part of the Central Park of Culture and Leisure, although they were previously absent there. Incidentally, it could be said that it was thanks to the tulips that the current cooperation agreement was signed. On the day of the citywide cleanup day, October 25, the Central Park of Culture and Leisure donated 10 thousand bulbs of these flowers to the Polytechnic UniversityThey were planted in various flowerbeds on campus, and in the spring we'll be able to host a mini-tulip festival here (the Central Park of Culture and Leisure hosts such festivals every year).

"Today marks a new chapter in our relationship; let's work together," Andrey Rudskoy said during the meeting. "You might be interested in our students' experience creating the Polytechnic University MetaCampus—a virtual digital ecosystem connecting the university's campus information model, databases, and service systems. We would be delighted if your specialists took on the responsibility for our park."

Developing this idea, Andrey Rudskoy presented a gift to Pavel Seleznev Photo album "Flora and fauna of the Polytechnic Park". An equivalent return gift to the Polytechnic was a colorful publication dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Elaginoostrovsky Palace and Park Ensemble.

Collaboration between the university and the Central Park of Culture and Leisure offers endless possibilities. In addition to staff training and professional development, this includes educational and on-the-job training and internships for students, career-guided excursions, visiting lectures, joint events, the participation of university creative teams in the Yelagin Park street theater festival, the participation of student research societies and design bureaus in the Yelagin Rally modeling and technical sports festival, and simply the volunteer participation of SPbPU students in Central Park of Culture and Leisure events. This includes technical expertise of amusement rides and collaboration on organizational and technical issues related to the preservation and development of the Polytechnic Park. Furthermore, Andrey Rudskoy greatly interested the partners in the opportunity to participate in the restoration of the garden at the Kholomki Estate Museum.

"We know what to surprise you with in Kholomki, we're preparing a surprise," Pavel Seleznev intrigued. "The Central Park of Culture and Leisure also has some interesting offers for students. Signing the agreement with the Polytechnic University is a great honor for me, and I hope our collaboration will be promising and mutually enriching."

Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source. It represents an accurate account of the source's assertions and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –

An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

The International Multimedia Press Center of the Rossiya Segodnya Media Group hosted a press conference titled "Engineers of the Future: Research by Scientists Changing the World Today." The event focused on the developments of scientists at Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. Participants presented to the general public for the first time specific solutions developed with the support of the Priority 2030 program and outlined the key scientific and technological areas (KNTDs) on which the Polytechnic University is focusing its efforts to achieve national technological leadership. The press conference also discussed current challenges facing Russian higher education.

At the beginning of the event, Yuri Fomin, SPbPU Vice-Rector for Research, explained why the Polytechnic University has focused on three key scientific and technological areas: "Systems Digital Engineering," "Materials, Technologies, and Production," and "Artificial Intelligence for Cross-Industry Problem Solving."

Peter the Great Polytechnic University is a large organization with nearly 37,000 employees, including 4,500 researchers and faculty, and over 200 research departments. We carefully and retrospectively assessed the research teams that possess, firstly, the scientific, technical, and technological foundation necessary to bring their products to market, and secondly, significant experience interacting with industrial partners and qualified customers. We structured these teams and realized that they fit into three key areas: fundamental and applied research, strategic products we plan to bring to market, and the educational framework that supports these areas in terms of higher education and postgraduate studies.

Yuri Fomin emphasized that when deciding on the projects to be included in the key areas, Polytechnic University experts consulted with representatives of the business community, with whom the university has extensive, historical ties. Therefore, the projects selected were based on specific needs.

Alexey Borovkov, chief designer of the key scientific and technological area, "System Digital Engineering," discussed the goals of the program: "In scientific terms, the Polytechnic University is multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, and in technical and technological terms, it produces high-tech products for the entire industry, where the primary tools are digital technologies and digital engineering. Given that the center of gravity in the competitive struggle has shifted to the development stage of high-tech products, the strategic goal of ensuring technological leadership is divided into two tasks. The first is the development, development, application, and implementation of technologies. The most advanced technology here is digital twins, which have the highest market growth rate—over 40 percent per year. The second task is the development, production, and operation of competitive products. The global engineering market is quite large: in 2024, it was worth over two trillion dollars, and by 2030, it is expected to reach approximately seven trillion dollars. This essentially covers everything related to engineering.

Alexey Borovkov presented 11 projects included in the "System Digital Engineering" scientific and technical conference, highlighting the industrial partners supporting them. The speaker clarified that the projects are expected to attract approximately 700 million rubles in extra-budgetary funds this year. By implementing research and development projects for the real sector of the economy, the university will attract four times more extra-budgetary funds for every ruble of budgetary funds.

Alexey Borovkov presented the results expected by the end of the year: the development of a digital platform for the development and application of CML-Bench digital twins, which ensures effective work with many high-tech industries and the digital transformation of engineering education based on a new knowledge and competency management system; the refinement of a small aircraft, where this year PISh engineers won the Russian championship in the light aviation class, which is intended to be later converted into an unmanned aircraft for agricultural engineering work; a next-generation burner device for the oil and gas industry; a new design of a mixing grid for nuclear power; a promising line of dental implants and exoprostheses; developments in the field of thermonuclear reactors, etc.

Arsenty Klyuev, a research fellow at the Laboratory of Hydromechanical Engineering at the Institute of Power Engineering at SPbPU, spoke at a press conference about one of the unique solutions within the framework of the KNTN-1 "System Digital Engineering" project related to the import substitution of foreign pumping equipment. This involves the development of innovative dewatering pumps to improve the energy efficiency and reliability of industrial and municipal water supply systems. The Polytechnic University has developed the flow geometry for a line of innovative free-vortex dewatering pumps optimized for handling contaminated liquids. The efficiency of these pumps already exceeds the best foreign analogues, and the validation of the mathematical flow model resulting from experimental studies of one of the pump prototypes will enable future virtual testing of similar pumps based on the digital platform being developed at the Polytechnic University as part of the KNTN-1 project. The implementation of this equipment will improve the energy efficiency and reliability of industrial and municipal water supply and wastewater systems, reducing operating costs and resource consumption. This domestic development will also help replace popular foreign brands. Such pumps are essential for various industries, including chemicals, housing and utilities, agriculture, and others.

Chief Designer Anatoly Popovich spoke about the challenges being addressed within the key scientific and technological area of "Materials, Technologies, and Production."

We've created a triad that links the development of new materials, manufacturing technology, and product manufacturing. We focus on the real needs of the country's industry. For example, 80% of gas turbines used in gas pipelines are currently imported, and they suffer from high wear and tear. Polytechnic University has signed a contract with Gazprom and proposes using additive technologies to solve this problem. For example, we're the first in the Russian Federation to create a gas turbine blade using 3D printing," noted Anatoly Popovich.

The next task is small-scale additive manufacturing of hot gas tract components. Polytechnic University has established small-scale production of T32 gas turbine combustion chamber injector swirl rings using selective laser melting technology. Finally, the repair and restoration of worn parts is also being carried out using 3D printing technology, but this time using direct laser deposition. The speaker demonstrated samples of finished components created at Polytechnic University to journalists.

Evgeniy Borisov, associate professor at the scientific and educational center “Structural and Functional Materials” of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Transport of St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, spoke about another unique technology developed in this key area – multimaterial 3D metal printing of complex-profile products. For the first time, the engineer demonstrated to the general public unique samples of parts created using a new technology for manufacturing complex-profile metal products from several materials using additive technologies. Traditional technologies (surfacing, welding, etc.) do not allow making products with complex geometries, in contrast to selective laser melting technology. However, it is limited to only one material. For more complex products involving several materials, it is necessary to divide the part into parts, process it in several cycles, and then connect it. This adds additional technological steps, increases the weight of the part and increases overall labor costs. The technology developed at Polytech allows the creation of complex-profile products for the high-tech industry within the framework of one technological cycle. Moreover, using this method, it is possible to increase, in particular, heat resistance, wear resistance, strength in specified areas while maintaining properties in the rest of the product. In addition, the new method of manufacturing metal parts from multiple materials can be used to create products in which some of the zones have special properties, such as a strength gradient. In the medical field, this can be used to create biocompatible implants from titanium and cobalt chromium.

Concluding his presentation on the work under the KNTN-2 "Materials, Technologies, and Production" conference, Anatoly Popovich added that Polytechnic University has already begun implementing Russian President Vladimir Putin's directive to establish research and production associations based at universities in collaboration with industrial enterprises. This will accelerate the introduction of breakthrough advanced manufacturing technologies into industry, which is essential for the country's technological leadership. Gas turbine engines represent the pinnacle of engineering and the driving force of modern mechanical engineering, so the implementation of low-tonnage production of critical components and parts for gas pumping units at Polytechnic University is an extremely important and pressing task for Russia.

SPbPU's chief designer, Yuri Fomin, spoke about its newest key scientific and technological area, "Artificial Intelligence for Cross-Industry Problem Solving."

The department's main strategic project addresses the challenges faced by vertically integrated oil and gas companies (VIOCs), which have two of the most expensive stages: exploration and production. Each of these stages is quite complex and generates a huge amount of heterogeneous and unstructured data. Our goal is to develop a tool, preferably based on machine learning methods, that could reduce these costs. To address this, Polytechnic University has created a digital platform for multimodal data analysis to generate predictive and prescriptive analytics, and has patented and registered the "Polanis" trademark," noted Yuri Fomin.

The speaker reported that this platform is currently being used to work on five projects. Alexander Timin, head of the Laboratory of Nano- and Microencapsulation of Biologically Active Substances at the Institute of Biomedical Systems and Biotechnology at SPbPU, first spoke to journalists about one of them—the search for new antitumor compounds using artificial intelligence.

The Polytechnic University has created a database containing information on the interactions of 100,000 potential anticancer chemical compounds with target proteins in cancer tumors. This is essential for accelerating one of the most labor-intensive processes: the search for compounds that could form the basis for drug therapy for malignant tumors. A mechanism has been developed for the rapid identification of molecular descriptors that statistically significantly correlate with antitumor activity. The use of machine learning methods reduces costs in the initial stages of development by up to 40% and shortens the time to market for a drug. The database is especially important for the development of cancer drugs whose active ingredients selectively target pathological cells directly within the tumor and do not have a systemic effect on surrounding tissues. This allows for a faster and more effective therapeutic effect, while reducing the adverse effects of chemotherapy.

The press conference concluded with a lively discussion. One of the journalists noted that scientific developments are often not implemented in industry due to a lack of necessary production capacity and a gap between science and industry, and he clarified plans for replicating the developments presented at the press conference. In response to a question, Anatoly Popovich invited journalists on a tour of the Polytechnic University, noting that the university not only develops unique technologies and facilitates their implementation in the real economy, but in some areas also provides the full cycle of creating finished high-tech products within the university walls.

Photo: © RIA Novosti/Anastasia Petrova

Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source. It represents an accurate account of the source's assertions and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –

An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

The International Forum of Foreign Alumni of Soviet and Russian Universities was held in Moscow. The event brought together hundreds of representatives of the global alumni community, who today are prominent government officials, successful entrepreneurs, scientists, and cultural leaders in their home countries. The forum became a key platform for strengthening professional and friendly ties, as well as for discussing the role of Russian education in the global context.

Russian Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov spoke at the forum's opening. He noted that international graduates of Russian universities play an important role in building sustainable dialogue and strengthening friendship between countries.

Many foreign graduates of Russian universities form the scientific and academic elite of their countries. They hold senior positions in government, education, and business. We are proud that foreign leaders trained at Soviet and Russian universities are now building a common future with Russia—a new multipolar world, emphasized Valery Falkov.

Pavel Nedelko, First Deputy Director of the Higher School of International Educational Programs and Assistant to the Vice Rector, actively participated in the forum. He participated in meetings with the heads of international alumni associations and also spoke at the section "International Alumni as Ambassadors of the Russian Language," where he shared his experience teaching Russian to international students at Polytechnic University and emphasized the unique role alumni play in promoting the Russian language and culture worldwide.

"Graduates, when leaving Russia, take with them not only a diploma but also a piece of our culture and, of course, the language. They become the most sincere and effective ambassadors of the Russian language in their countries. Their personal and professional success, inextricably linked to the education they received here, is the best motivation for new applicants and a powerful tool of soft power," Pavel Nedelko noted in his speech.

Participants in the section discussed specific cases and initiatives on how graduates can contribute to the popularization of the Russian language: from organizing courses and cultural centers in their home countries to supporting educational projects on social media and in professional communities.

Participation in the forum marked a new step for Polytechnic University in building a global network of partnerships. The agreements reached and ideas generated open up new opportunities for the university to integrate international graduates into its international educational and cultural mission.

Photo: Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation

Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source. It represents an accurate account of the source's assertions and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.